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children, and our cattle with thirst? And Mofes cried unto the Lord, faying, What shall I do unto this people, they be almost ready to ftone me? Finding no flesh-meat in the wilderness, they again repented that they had left Egypt. Num. xi. 4, They wept, faying, Who fhall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fifh that we did eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now is our foul dried away. There is nothing at all but this manna before our eyes.

On the unfavourable report of the spies, who had been fent to explore the land of Canaan, we read, Num. xiv. 2, All the children of Ifrael murmured against Mofes and against Aaron, and the whole congregation faid unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God that we had died in the wilderness; and wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the fword, that our wives and our children fhould be a prey? Were it not better for us to return to Egypt? Again, when they wanted water, after paffing forty years in the wilderness, and been maintained by miracle all that time, we read, chap. xx. 2, they gathered themselves together

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together against Mofes, and against Aaron, and the people chode with Mofes, and the people faid, Would God we had died when our brethren died before the Lord, and why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? and wherefore have ye made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place? It is not a place of feed, or of figs, or vins, or pomegranates, neither is there any water to drink. Laftly, when Arad the Canaanite fell upon them, and took fome prifoners, we read, Num. xxi. 4, the fouls of the people were much difcouraged, because of the way, and the people Spake against God and against Mofes, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our foul loatheth this light bread.

As to the religion which Mofes prefcribed to this people, there is the most abundant and indifputable evidence of their having been very far indeed from having had any predilection for it. On the contrary, they from the first discovered a diflike to it, and took every opportunity of deferting it, and revolting to the more alluring rites of the neighbouring na

tions; and fuch as, no doubt, they had been accustomed to, and been fond of, in Egypt. But as this is a fubject of the greatest importance, I fhall defer enlarging upon it to the next opportunity.

DISCOURSE

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DISCOURSE X.

The Evidence of the Mofaic and Chriftian Religions.

PART II.

God, who, at fundry times, and in divers manners, Spake in time paft unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, in thefe laft days, Spoken unto us by his Son.

N my

HEB. i. I, 2.

IN last discourse, I obferved that the only proper evidence of divine revelation, is the exhibition of fomething to which divine power alone is equal, or proper miracles, and that thefe, not being analogous to common events, are, on that account, improbable, a priori, and therefore require more definite evidence, though there is nothing that is poffible in itself, but may be proved to have taken place by human teftimony. And I farther obferved, that all that the most sceptical perfons could re

quire in the cafe, were the following circumftances, viz. that the miracles must be in fufficient number, and also exhibited so long, as to afford fufficient opportunity to consider and examine them. They must be on fo large a fcale, or otherwife of fuch a nature, as to exclude all fufpicion of trick and impofition; they must be exhibited before perfons who had no previous difpofition to expect or believe them; a great degree of attention must be excited to them at the time, and a fufficient number of perfons must be interested to ascertain their reality, while the events were recent; the history of them must be coeval with the events, and the belief of them must have produced a lafting effect.

Three of the first mentioned of thefe circumstances I have already fhewn are found in the miracles recorded in the fcriptures, and with respect to the next, I have shewn that the Hebrew nation was fufficiently indifpofed to believe the divine miffion of Mofes in general, and I fhall now proceed to show that they were more particularly indifpofed to receive the religion which he prefented to them, and which it was the great object of all the miracles to establish. So far, I have

obferved,

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